The United States is experiencing an economic crisis. Nobody could’ve predicted COVID-19 and the strain it would place on the global market, but the pandemic is only partly to blame. The current crisis is also the result of incompetent leadership and failed economic policy. First and foremost on working families’ minds today is the fact that inflation is through the roof. The shocks to supply and demand caused by COVID, together with literally trillions of dollars of government spending, are increasing prices at the highest rate since 1982. Prices for staples like food and fuel are rising even faster, and wages can’t keep up. This was not an accident. From the moment he assumed office, President Biden made the decision to pump free money into our economy under the pretense of “COVID relief.” He wasn’t using the funds to save small businesses or keep workers on payroll during a public health lockdown, as my Paycheck Protection Program did. Rather, the Biden administration wanted to fill people’s wallets so they could keep buying things and grow the gross domestic product. And the Federal Reserve Board, led by Biden appointee Jerome Powell, made an intentional decision to let inflation creep ever higher. Meanwhile, the global supply chains scrambled in 2020 have yet to recover. As a result, certain manufactured materials are in short supply across the country. Even as companies ramp up their production, shipping backlogs are leaving American citizens unable to buy cars, household appliances, and other important goods. This isn’t just the fault of the coronavirus, because supply chains were unnecessarily vulnerable from the beginning. Why? For decades, our nation’s elites have prioritized efficiency and corporate profits above all else. Over the past 20 years, efficient markets boosted the stock market and rewarded shareholders. But these gains have been at the cost of millions of American manufacturing jobs, as well as the resilience of our economy. Back in February 2019, I pointed out how an emphasis on short-term gains had made us dependent on foreign producers and weakened our supply chains. I made the case that a renewed industrial policy was critical to protecting the national interest. The last two years have borne that out. What can we do to avert the ongoing crisis? The first step toward halting inflation is to stop doing the very thing that’s causing it. It doesn’t matter how big the GDP is if real working Americans can’t put food on the table for their families. The president and the Federal Reserve need to stop flooding the market with free money and restrict government spending to targeted programs that actually help businesses stay open and become more productive. To address our supply chain problems, we need to bring production closer to home. We can work with allies in Latin America and the Caribbean to move critical industries away from China and back into our hemisphere. Moreover, we can use tax incentives to push businesses to reinvest in their workers and products rather than profit off financial speculation. The government can directly incentivize innovation and development in key industries, too. Operation Warp Speed is proof that properly targeted government incentives can pay dividends for our nation. Consider the alternative: Without federal intervention, pharmaceutical companies would have eventually created a coronavirus vaccine. But Washington’s reward system sped up the process, saving countless lives and bringing us closer to recovery from COVID-19 in a matter of months. We should take a similarly aggressive approach to promote development in rareearth minerals, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, and other key industries that the Chinese Communist Party seeks to dominate. Policies like these represent departures from the bipartisan economic consensus that has ruled our elite institutions since the end of the Cold War. But they will ultimately be healthy for American capitalism. It is true that market forces teach us a lot about how to run our economy. However, markets were made for people, not people for markets. The last two years have taught us that our leaders’ economic policies are misguided and dysfunctional. In their shortsighted drive to grow the national economy and maximize market efficiency, they have brought us crippling inflation, fragile supply chains, and a dramatically insufficient manufacturing base. Turning the corner from this crisis will mean changing course – adopting a new fiscal policy and placing far more value on domestic industry. This won’t be easy, but when it comes to building up our nation’s resilience, we have significant ground to make up – which means we cannot get started soon enough. Marco Rubio FL. Senator The Sun Bay Paper Page 10 January 21, 2022 - January 27, 2022 True 'COVID Relief' Demands a New Economic Consensus Omicron is Stealing the Show What seems like decades ago, during the “first trimester” of this 21st century pandemic, headlines like this appeared: “Trump administration outlines audacious plan to deliver ‘hundreds of millions’ of COVID-19 vaccine doses by end of 2020.” So wrote Lew Facher in “STAT.” Facher pointed out the audacious nature of Trump’s promise and noted the silence of his bureaucratic chief scientific experts – Fauci, Brix, and Collins. Trump’s outrageously bold, non-bureaucratic style accomplished “Operation Warp Speed.” Sometime thereafter, that familiar pair who became his presidential election adversaries also distanced themselves from Trump’s vaccine development. They declared they wouldn’t trust a vaccine endorsed by Trump. Dominating my thoughts at that time was a sense of inevitability surrounding COVID. We mere humans could make a positive difference, and we did. We could make lots of mistakes, and we have. And I couldn’t resist feeling certain that the virus was going to have its way with us no matter what we did. And it has. We’ve had successes, and we’ve made some bad mistakes. Some of our faults were inevitable because we started from ground zero. With others, we’ve been too stubborn or shortsighted to adjust. For example, we’ve always had a “one-size-fits-all” strategic vision, and our COVID-zero strategy prevailed well after we learned that would be impossible to achieve. Our “one-size-fits-all” mindset unnecessarily denied healthy young people the best educational experience possible. On the other hand, relatively speaking, we ignored the truly vulnerable. We should have spent virtually all our energy and resources on protecting those groups. Our biggest “unforced error” happened when our COVID-zero strategy lured our leaders, and most citizens, to focus primarily on the “blessed event” of vaccine development. Our thoughts were narrowly focused on “keep us safe,” naïve to the fact that “safe means never.” During that “first trimester” I wrote about changing from peacetime to wartime protocol for developing medical solutions. That translates to reimagining possibilities, realigning processes, and dispensing with bureaucratic patience. Operation Warp Speed met those parameters, but we stopped too soon. As existing off-label therapeutics and medications were mentioned as possible treatments, the FDA emphatically reminded us that several off-label drugs hadn’t been approved for use against COVID. They demanded that we “stay away from them.” There was much potential in several of these drugs, and they were proven safe. But the FDA didn’t, and still doesn’t, acknowledge the potential efficacy of these drugs. Limited profit potential can be an invisible hand discouraging the pharmaceutical industry from doing the necessary testing. So, here we are without the benefit of an “Operation Warp Speed” for therapeutic treatments. American lives have been lost. Viruses seem to have a collective “awareness” that they want to survive, so they eliminate weaknesses and exploit strengths through mutation. That can also lead to lower death rates. That reality introduced the word “variant” into our growing virus vocabulary. The original “Wuhan virus” eventually begat the “Delta” variant and soon, along came Omicron. We’re finding that dealing with this latest variant is far different than earlier versions. Everything is different including resistance to vaccine and increased spread rate. Sadly, we don’t have an adequate level of therapeutics to treat those infected. Some experts and politicians still emphasize continued public health measures. The mild nature of Omicron has convinced others it’s time for private health decisions regarding vaccinations and therapeutics. And a growing number believe Omicron’s “sharp elbows,” along with its mild symptoms, will soon reduce the pandemic to endemic status. Nevertheless, much of the U.S. is entering renewed restrictions. We hear talk of “flattening the curve” by closing large gatherings, distancing, and strict masking. Getting vaccinated is still emphasized in our defensive public health strategies. It seems we’ve come full circle since these rudimentary measures were introduced almost two years ago. Omicron currently represents about 90 to 95% of U.S. infections. Our neglect in developing therapeutics is becoming more obvious. At least partially as a result, Omicron has stolen the show. In areas with the earliest Omicron infections, e.g. New York City, new infections are now plummeting faster than they had increased. Given that statistic, I’m rooting for the theory that “sharp elbows of Omicron will lead us into the endemic phase.” Let’s hope! myslantonthings.com Steve Bakke, Fort Myers
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